


Whatever Tomorrow Brings

by nagi_schwarz



Series: The Oppenheimer Effect [57]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-23 00:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7460409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "any. any. Bonding over a pet."</p><p>Tyler goes to the park with Oppie and meets someone new.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whatever Tomorrow Brings

The truth was, Tyler was still seriously, seriously freaked out about the whole Stargate thing. He had an alien gene. The men in his house had fought aliens. JD was a clone of his own uncle. JD was an old man inside a teenage body. He actually remembered what he was doing the day JFK was killed. The scars on Evan's chest were from when he was kidnapped and tortured _by an alien_.  
  
And the world had almost ended so, so many times. Tyler had been none the wiser. He'd been caught up in his own petty problems while Cam and JD and Evan and Rodney had been fighting off the alien apocalypse over and over again. John kind of got how Tyler felt, because he'd been out of the loop too, but he'd also been a soldier, flown classified missions, had prevented certain destruction while people back home were none the wiser.  
  
Most days Tyler could walk through the hallways at school and listen to Tina and Sasha fret about homework, listen to the gossip about who was dating who and who'd dumped who and who'd cheated on who, and he could actually care. These were his people, his friends. Graduation was just around the corner. He was scrambling to get signed up at the community college so he could become a certified mechanic.  
  
But some days he'd glance out the window up at the blue sky and wonder what was going on out there, what danger was coming, and he had to get out.  
  
Had to get away from it all. As long as he took his cell phone with him and was home on time for dinner and his homework got done on time, Cam and the others were okay with him taking his longboard out for a ride. Usually he went to the park and sat under The Tree (where John and Rodney had their first date, where Cam and JD and Evan first told Tyler about them, invited him to be part of their family) and practiced his deep breathing.  
  
If he closed his eyes and grounded himself, he’d be okay. He was alive. He was fine. And he was probably safer than anyone else on the planet anyway, what with three former SGC soldiers looking out for him, plus one badass Air Force pilot and the smartest man in the galaxy.  
  
More often than not, Oppie tracked him down, crawled onto his lap and settled down to purr like a little motorboat, comforting white noise and vibration till Tyler could open his eyes and come out of himself, and then Tyler would pet his fur and watch his collar flash and feel okay, because Oppie’s fur was soft and Oppie loved him too.  
  
“Your cat’s really beautiful.”  
  
Tyler looked up, startled.  
  
A girl was standing on the grass a few feet from him. She had a blanket folded over one arm and a bulging backpack slung over her shoulder. She had dark skin and dark eyes and long, long, long dark hair, and a henna tattoo snaking up one arm.  
  
“Oh. Um. He’s not really my cat. He belongs to one of my, er, uncles. Who lives next door.”  
  
“What kind is he?” the girl asked. “He’s super big.”  
  
Tyler had to wrack his brains for a moment. “A ragdoll cat.”  
  
“What’s his name?”  
  
“Oppenheimer,” Tyler said.  
  
“Ah. Is your uncle a scientist?”  
  
“Yes. How’d you know?”  
  
The girl smiled. She had slightly crooked teeth and glasses, but her smile was bright, friendly. “Oppenheimer was a physicist. Almost every scientist I know names their cat Schrodinger or their dog Pavlov. Oppenheimer’s pretty original, though.”  
  
“Everyone calls him Oppie,” Tyler offered.  
  
The girl started forward a step, paused. “Can I pet him?”  
  
“Sure. He’s really friendly.” Tyler hoisted Oppie up, and the girl came closer. She sank down her knees with a gracefulness like a dancer - which Tyler wouldn’t have taken her for, with her broad shoulders and muscular forearms - and stretched out a hand, smoothed it over Oppie’s fur gently.  
  
“Hi Oppie,” she crooned.  
  
Oppie butted her hand affectionately. His collar, Tyler noted, didn’t light up for her.  
  
“I’m Brenda, by the way.”  
  
“Tyler.”  
  
“Nice to meet you. Do you live around here? I think I’ve seen you riding your board around here before.”  
  
“Yeah, just a few blocks over.”  
  
“What grade are you in? I don’t know if I’ve seen you at school, but I’m still pretty new.”  
  
“I go to Memorial,” Tyler said.

“Ah, okay. I go to Cold Springs.” Brenda kept petting Oppie’s fur. “He’s really well-behaved. How old is he?”  
  
“I’m not sure. I’d have to ask Rodney - the man who owns him. My uncle.”  
  
Brenda stroked behind Oppie’s ear, and he nosed at her affectionately. “Your uncle’s a lucky guy. Oppie’s a sweet kitty.” She glanced at her watch. “I’d better get home to help my mom with dinner. Thanks for letting me pet your cat, Tyler.” She rose up, again as smoothly as a dancer, and started to turn away.  
  
“Hey, Brenda?”   
  
She paused.  
  
“Can I ask you a weird question?”  
  
“You can ask, but I’m not sure I have an answer.”  
  
Tyler bit his lip, thinking. “How would you feel if - if there was something out there, in the universe, that could kill you in an instant, wars raging that you never see, that could snuff your life out?”  
  
Brenda tilted her head. “It’s not a question of _if_ , is it? There are things out there that could kill me at any moment. Diseases, poisons, infections. Some thug with a gun and my name on a bullet because he wants my stupid backpack, which has nothing but textbooks, and cheap ones at that. A bus with a faulty brake line that is going to cross my path three days from now. I can’t focus on those, though. There are things I need to do today - talk to a cute boy, pet his cat, help my mom with dinner, do my best on my homework so I can get good grades and a scholarship. I need to focus on those so they happen. And whatever tomorrow brings, it brings. I can only control me.”  
  
Tyler blinked at her, surprised at the thoroughness of her answer, especially given how she’d said she couldn’t guarantee one.  
  
She laughed and ducked her head. “I might be on the varsity debate team.”  
  
“Might?”  
  
“Might be a captain for one of the events, too.”  
  
“Might,” Tyler echoed. “That was - a really good answer, actually. What I needed to hear. Thanks, Brenda.”  
  
“No problem, Tyler. Maybe I’ll see you around again. Bye, Oppie!” Brenda waved, and then she turned and ambled away.  
  
Tyler sat, stroking Oppie’s fur, and pondering what she’d said. He had things he needed to do, like graduate from high school. He stood up, scooped up his board, and trotted for the sidewalk, Oppie padding along beside him.  
  
“She was right, buddy,” Tyler said to Oppie as they sped along the sidewalk toward home. “Like it says in the musical - no day but today.”  
  
He made it almost all the way home before he realized Brenda had called him cute.


End file.
